Mother Nature halts Vikings, Blue Eagles

They'll return to Allentown at 6 p.m. Saturday with Vikings leading 27-21 and 7:15 to play.

October 19, 2012|By Keith Groller, Of The Morning Call

After spending three-and-a-half quarters trying to beat each other on Friday night at J. Birney Crum Stadium, the Central Catholic and Nazareth football teams quickly learned they couldn't beat Mother Nature.

A thunderstorm hit west Allentown about 9:15 p.m. with Central Catholic holding a 27-21 lead and seven minutes, 15 seconds left in the game.

At the first sign of a lightning strike, the game was halted and the field and stadium were cleared after an announcement by P.A. announcer John Rosenberger.

About 9:50 p.m. with the heavy rain and storm just starting to unleash, the athletic directors from both schools and stadium manager Scott Cooperman huddled in the fieldhouse area and decided to suspend the game with the resumption coming at 6 p.m. Saturday.

When play resumes, Central Catholic will have the ball at its own 40, having just picked up a first down after a 20-yard run by Colin McDermott.

The game seemed headed for an exciting finish before news of an impending storm created a different kind of excitement.

"You can't control Mother Nature. What are you going to do?" Nazareth coach Rob Melosky said before getting his kids on the buses for the ride home. "I don't know if I was ever in this situation before, maybe once when I was an assistant at Freedom. It's like anything else, you just have to deal with it and remember that Central has to deal with the same situation."

Melosky and the Blue Eagles (5-2, 4-2 LVC) spent most of the night trying to deal with McDermott, Central's star running back, who ran for 188 yards on 34 carries and scored a pair of touchdowns.

McDermott's two scores tie him with Rashonn Drayton, a member of the Vikings' 1993 state championship team, for No. 1 on Central's all-time touchdown list. McDermott and Drayton both have 64.

But McDermott wasn't the only offensive weapon tormenting Nazareth.

Quarterback Anthony Beck hooked up with Sean O'Donnell for a pair of touchdown tosses — a 20-yarder late in the first quarter when CCHS seized a 13-0 lead and again for a 31-yard strike in the final seconds of the third quarter to give the Vikings the lead again after Nazareth rallied to tie it at 21.

"We've got to stop them when we come back," Melosky said. "McDermott's a horse."

Melosky admitted that his team had been sluggish on offense.

"We sputtered a little bit," he said. "Even on our last drive before the stoppage, we had a screen pass that could have gone a long way, but it was dropped. But give Central credit. They're playing inspired football. Maybe this delay will slow them down a little bit. We like to go fast and we're capable of scoring a lot of points in a short amount of time, so we'll see."

After Nazareth's first possession ended on an interception by Central's Ryan Beville, the Blue Eagles finally got going on the legs of quarterback Parish Simmons, who broke loose for a 47-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter.

Nazareth also scored on a Jordan Gray run late in the first half.

However, after there was just one punt required over the first 24 minutes, the defenses settled in after intermission and the teams combined for five punts. Central's defense was particularly aggressive and had four stops for losses in the third quarter alone.

One of those losses resulted in points as Central's Anthony Lynch, a force all night defensively, broke into the backfield and dumped Nazareth's Shabbar Bokhari in the end zone for a safety.

The whole sequence was set up by a 50-yard punt by the Vikings' Robert Fidati.

"Coach Melosky and I have been talking and this has been a physical game all the way around. … what we expected," CCHS coach John Cupples said. "We've just got to come back and finish up the game. We'll be ready to play. It shouldn't be a problem. We've just got to take care of business."

The game is crucial for both teams as they are trying to get into the District 11 playoffs — Nazareth in the 4A classification, CCHS in 3A. The Vikings are 3-4, 2-4 LVC.

However, when bad weather strikes, concerns about standings and playoff positions go out the window in the name of safety.

Both schools handled the situation with poise and had no problem with the decision to come back a day later rather than wait out a potentially nasty situation.

"We'll just go home, get some rest and come back tomorrow ready to play football," Melosky said.